


of riceballs and jello cups

by 100demons



Category: Naruto
Genre: Canon Compliant, First Meetings, Gen, Gen or Pre-Slash, M/M, Pre-Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-09
Updated: 2014-03-09
Packaged: 2018-01-15 03:15:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,411
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1289032
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/100demons/pseuds/100demons
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Iruka has lunch with the Legendary Sharingan no Kakashi.</p><blockquote>
  <p>It was not <i>not</i> peaceful. In a way, it was rather like having lunch with a chair. A chair that read porn and was also capable of assassinating people with a dull spoon.</p>
</blockquote>
            </blockquote>





	of riceballs and jello cups

The hospital food had never been particularly inspiring but the options today looked to Iruka, a hardened twentysomething chuunin with more than his fair share of experience battling cooking attempts gone sentient, a bit like an eviscerated stomach slowly growing mold. 

He squinted at the tiny, water-stained placard.

“Spicy offal, with extra entrails,” he read aloud, face slowly turning pale under his tan. 

The genin behind the serving counter gave him a sympathetic look. “Cook’s pissed, sensei,” she explained, reaching up awkwardly to tug her hair, only to realize too late that it was bound up in a hair net. “Some ninja questioned his ability to run the hospital mess.”

“Ayako,” Iruka grinned at her, recognizing the dark eyes and her hair-tugging. She’d been in one of his very first classes a few years back, excellent chakra control though her reserves were a little lacking. He’d had a devil of a time marking her homework because all the circle-y bits in her hiragana looked alike. “It’s good to see you! How’s your goldfish doing?”

“Still alive, even though he’s so fat that he sinks more than he swims,” Ayako said, rolling her eyes. “Hiro keeps overfeeding him even when I tell him he’s gonna give it morbid obesity and make it explode.”

Iruka grimaced a little. Hiro was over-enthusiastic and thankfully, not blessed with chakra manipulation. The time he’d come along for a parent-teacher conference, he’d thrown a tantrum about wanting to be a ninja and then had promptly thrown up all over Iruka’s painfully exposed toes. It was not the last time he’d considered investing in a proper pair of civilian construction boots, with steel-tipped toes. All the better to kick recalcitrant children with. 

“He’ll grow out of it,” Iruka promised and slid his tray over, picking up a bunch of bananas and a bright green jello cup out of a towering pyramid. Two plates of umeboshi flavored rice balls for carbs and Iruka glumly took a box of refrigerated natto, now that his only other source of protein was (heavily suspected to be) poisoned offal. At the end of the line, he snagged two bottles of electrolyte flavored water and scanned his chakra bracelet against the machine at the end. The only highlight of being forced to stay in the hospital was all the free food he could smuggle out under his flak vest. 

“You’re not sick, are you Iruka-sensei?” Ayako had followed him down the line, one finger curling insistently around a strand of hair that had fallen out of her regulation hair-net. 

“Me?” Iruka glanced down at the bracelet hanging on his wrist, marking him as a patient. It slid down brown skin and clanged against the metal counter he was leaning on. “No need to worry, I’m just here for a routine check-up.” He made a face. “I probably have premature grey hairs from teaching but I’m fine otherwise.”

“That’s good,” Ayako smiled at him, dark eyes radiant and Iruka couldn’t help smiling back, marveling at how much she’d grown in the few short years since she’d graduated and left his classroom.

“Tell Takahashi and Masaki that I said hi, ok?” Iruka brushed the engraved leaf of his forehead protector in farewell, shiny new metal sliding easily against his fingers. He left her at the counter, feeling a vague warmth suffuse him and he let it carry him all the way into the main seating area. 

The hospital lunch time rush was in full course, hundreds of white-clad nurses sitting cheek-by jowl with exhausted medic nins taking naps with cups of steaming coffee in hand. Every table was filled, with even a few (stupidly young) kids attempting to eat lunch upside down on the ceiling and littering the table beneath them with half-bitten french fries. The only reason they had escaped censure thus far was that the table below was full of sleeping medic-nins, too tired to notice the hail of half-chewed food raining down from the obnoxious heavens. 

There was a blissful oasis in the corner of the vast, churning mess of people, plain white table calling out plaintively to Iruka, begging for another person. Iruka almost obliged before he caught sight of silver-grey hair, turning almost white in the bright, unforgiving sunlight. 

Well, that explained a lot.

Iruka considered his options.

Option A: sit next to a Sharingan no Kakashi, known pervert, jounin-sensei and Naruto’s purported slave driver. Ranked S-Class in all the Bingo Books that counted and even the ones that had a circulation of three in some backwater village in the boonies. 

Option B: make futile circuits around the room, hoping to score a seat, instead wasting minutes of precious freedom before his next appointment.

Option C: sit on the ceiling like he was thirteen again and hope to the merciful heavens he didn’t drop one of his onigiri.

Iruka trudged over to the table, making sure to scuff his feet in warning ten feet away from the table, though Hatake Kakashi probably knew he was coming before Iruka even thought of it. 

“Hatake-san.”

A blank grey eye slid from the erotic escapades of Icha Icha and to Iruka’s face. “‘Yo,” Hatake Kakashi said blandly.

Iruka held his tray up and gave him a smile. “Would you mind if I--?”

There was a beat and Iruka’s smile faltered a little. 

Hatake Kakashi nodded his head, just a fraction of an inch, and Iruka slid into his seat, suddenly all knees and elbows, slamming his tray down just a touch too hard. His jello cup rattled against his plastic spoon. The sound it made when he ripped the aluminum covering off almost deafened Iruka, in this tiny bubble of silence that radiated around Hatake in a precise five foot radius. Even the clamor of the busy mess hall failed to even so much as make a dent in the air. 

There was a half-eaten banana in front of Hatake and the crumbled remnants of what Iruka guessed had been a riceball; he had picked apart the sticky rice grains and the scattered clumps of dismembered food littered Hatake’s plate. To the side, an untouched plate of the lunch special. 

It was not _not_ peaceful. In a way, it was rather like having lunch with a chair. A chair that read porn and was also capable of assassinating people with a dull spoon. 

Iruka dug into his jello (he was an adult and could make adult decisions like eating dessert before real food) and made quick work of it. It barely took the sharp edge off his hunger. He stuffed a rice ball in his mouth and set to work peeling a banana. 

“How are you healing?”

Iruka barely warded off a choke, instead coughing wetly into his hand. A chair that also now spoke. “Sorry,” he wheezed and downed half a bottle of juice. He coughed again to clear his airway. Hatake looked on, bored.

Iruka flushed and wiped his hands on a spare napkin. “How did you?” Well, he had the clearance to know about The Incident, and high ranked enough he was probably on alert that night.

“Naruto can’t stop talking about you,” Hatake said and his book lowered a bit, enough that Iruka could see the point of Hatake’s chin, lined in plain, unbroken black. 

Of course. Iruka rubbed his temples, half-embarrassed and flattered. He’d told Naruto that it wasn’t much of anything, the medics just wanted to be sure, he was only back for a few more routine check-ups. Hopefully he’d kept to the cover story Iruka had concocted, involving a bad accident at the training fields and subsequent PT. 

“It’s fine,” Iruka shrugged and picked up the banana he’d abandoned. It was still faintly green and unripe but he was too hungry to care about the bitter, almost chalky aftertaste. “He worries too much.”

“Hmm,” Hatake said.

Iruka finished the banana and picked up another. “Honestly, he should be more focused on his genin team. He comes over half the time looking bruised to hell and he eats twice more than he usually does.”

“Training at a higher level tends to do that,” Hatake put in, just a touch dryly.

“He already ate enough for ten, my wallet’s starting to feel the strain,” Iruka gave him a rueful grin. “But it’s good that you push him so hard, he needs the individual attention and the hard work. It’s hard to give someone like him support at the Academy.” Naruto had needed a parent at home to help him with his homework and bully him into sleeping on time, not just an overstretched chuunin-sensei who bought him ramen and cleaned up after his pranks. Iruka bit his lip, just hard enough that he could feel skin starting to tear. 

“We’re working on his discipline,” Hatake said in such a mild, deceptively casual tone that Iruka looked up, delighted.

“So the prank worked?”

Hatake tilted his head, dappled sunlight patterning his silvery hair. “You know about it?”

“Just provided some tips,” Iruka said, proud. “The baby powder and the honey was all his idea.”

“He’s running ten laps around the Walls for it,”Hatake said, leaning into the hand that propped his chin up. If he went any more boneless, Iruka was sure that Hatake would probably slide right off the chair and into a puddle on the ground.

“Every prank has its punishment,” Iruka said sagely and bit triumphantly into his banana. It was almost tolerable this time and Iruka finished it off in three quick bites. 

“That must have been quite a healing session.”

“What?” Iruka swallowed, wiping his mouth on the back of his hand. 

“You’re eating a lot for a patient who’s only here for a routine check-up.”

Iruka had been lulled into a false sense of security by the quiet and unassuming demeanor, the mild-mannered voice, the unflappablly blank face. The eye that stared Iruka down was hard and unnerving, dissecting him, peeling layer by layer back until Iruka felt horrifically exposed, like a beetle pinned helpless underneath a microscope. If this was how it felt to be under the scrutiny of his _normal_ eye, Iruka did not very much like to think what it would be like if the Sharingan came out. 

“I suppose I was asking for it, a little,” Iruka sighed. “Haven’t you ever heard of curiosity killing the cat?”

“And satisfaction brought it back,” Hatake said lazily, but his eye never lost its sharp intensity. 

“Well, your satisfaction’s not going to be free,” Iruka said. 

“What?” Hatake blinked. 

“I’m not just going to offer you information you want for nothing,” Iruka said, picking up his spoon and wishing he’d picked up another jello cup. It had been good, even if it was sugar-free. “Do I look like an idiot?” He raised the spoon up before Hatake even had a chance to answer. “Don’t answer that, for normal people that was a rhetorical question. And the effort that would take in discerning my real reason for staying here would be greater than paying my price, which is why you’ll agree to this.”

“Well,” Hatake said after a long pause. “What would have of me in return?”

Iruka considered it while opening up his tin of natto, spreading a generous amount over the side of riceball and sandwiching another one on top. “A question for a question,” he said finally, not making eye contact. 

“Interesting,” Hatake said. “I’ll only accept if you agree to a set of parameters.”

Iruka tried to restrain a smile and failed miserably. “Mutual discretion regarding this conversation, no personal questions, defining personal as any question attempting to divulge emotional ties or habits, no multiple part questions, nothing that could potentially impinge on village security, including questions on special abilities.” 

“You worked in Intel.” 

Iruka kept smiling. “You flatter me Hatake-san,” he said a little too promptly, catching Hatake’s (was that _approving_?! Iruka didn’t know whether to feel pleased or alarmed. Probably both.) slight dip of his head. “But like my records state, I’ve only ever worked as a filing clerk in the Administration building before picking up teaching.”

“Do I get a chance to recant my previous question and pose a new one?”

Iruka took a bite of his riceball sandwich and chewed manfully. “Nah,” he said after a few minutes, thinking it over. “So, still game?”

Icha Icha was by now lying on the mess table, one slim finger marking Hatake’s place in the book. Iruka gave it a quick glance. He hadn’t heard a page turn since he’d got here ten minutes ago. 

“Why’re you in the hospital?”

The riceball was sticky and hard to properly chew. Iruka swallowed with some difficulty, washing it down with a generous mouthful of juice. “When I got hit by the fuuma shuriken, there were concerns about nerve damage.” 

Iruka shrugged, looking down at his plate. “Compressed vertebrae and an incomplete spinal lesion, so I kind of went into shock. They let me out a couple of weeks ago but a secondary spinal cord injury developed.” Iruka’s mouth twisted.

“You’re walking.” There was nothing soft about Hatake’s voice but there was no pity in his eye either. 

“I am,” Iruka nodded. “This morning they’ve been working on my nerve connections and they have so many stabilization seals on my spine that it’s making my chakra itch. It’s why they let me get up and walk around a bit. But they’re not sure if I’ll ever be able to run again or if I'll be able to use chakra without blowing my central nervous system out. And it’ll be hard to keep up with my kids with a bad back.” 

Hatake didn’t say anything and it was surprisingly nice. There were no false platitudes, no _I’m sorry_ or _that sucks_ or even real-felt sympathy that Iruka would no doubt appreciate in the far, far future but only made him feel worse about himself right now. Only just a quiet, companionable silence because there was nothing really to say. 

“Could you--” Iruka rubbed the scar on his nose, an old habit he’d recently picked up again. “Not tell Naruto, if you could help it?”

Even with three quarters of his face covered, Hatake somehow projected disapproval in some vague wavelength that had nothing to do with moving facial features. 

“He doesn’t need to worry about something like this,” Iruka said firmly. “And if I know him, he’ll only blame it on himself and mope about it and then he’ll make _your_ life miserable, which I’m sure you don’t want.”

“I wasn’t aware Naruto had the capability of thinking about anything other than ramen or jutsu,” Hatake said, the curve of his eye looking vaguely amused. 

“And that’s all he needs to think about right now,” Iruka said. “He should be worrying me and driving me nuts, not the other way around. So.” Iruka shrugged. 

“He’s not a child to coddle any longer,” Hatake said. 

Iruka pressed his lips together. “He’s twelve years old, Hatake-san. Just because he has a forehead protector doesn’t mean that he’s emotionally and physically mature. And until then, it’s my job to look out for him. All you have to do is keep quiet.”

“Alright,” Hatake said. “But on one condition.”

Iruka blinked. “What?”

“Don’t call me Hatake-san.”

Iruka chewed very, very slowly, trying to make it seem like he wasn’t hiding his face behind his big giant riceball sandwich. Hatake’s face hadn’t changed, projecting the same air of slouchy disinterest he had since the start of the conversation. Same grey eye, same black mask, same boneless posture that made Iruka want to beat a backbone into him. 

“Kakashi-san?” Iruka tried.

Something about Hatake --no, _Kakashi_ , brightened and Iruka couldn’t help but smile back. 

“Hatake-san makes me sound like an old, respectable ninja.” Kakashi trailed a pale finger down Icha Icha’s worn spine. “As you can see, that’s not exactly who I am.”

“Er, no, not really,” Iruka said. “Point taken.” He wiped his sticky hands on his chuunin blues and finished chugging down his juice. 

Kakashi silently pushed over the plate of the lunch special with a nudge of his wrist.

“Ew, no,” Iruka said and instinctively started to breathe in with his mouth. “That looks disgusting.”

“It’s protein and iron rich,” Kakashi pointed out mildly. “And I’m sure you’ve had worse on missions anyway.” The plate was now close enough to touch Iruka’s outstretched hand. 

“Not on a mission _now_ ,” Iruka muttered. “And I usually just stick to eating ration bars anyway.” He made a face. “It would help if the cook had actually made them into something that looked edible instead of freshly gored intestines topped with hot sauce.” 

“It makes it look more authentic,” Kakashi said and prodded the plate forward. He raised an eyebrow. “Or are you too much of a coward to try it?”

“Ha ha,” Iruka said sourly. “You’re not going to provoke me into eating that crap. I’m _above_ this kind of crass manipulation--”

Kakashi palmed a senbon in a delicate little twist of his wrist and speared a chunk of meaty flesh with one end. He raised it up into the air, thick drops of greasy red sauce trickling down and onto the table.

“Iruka-sensei.” He waved the makeshift kebab in the air. 

Iruka flushed and looked away, even though Kakashi’s face was still as calm and immutable as ever. It was just that Kakashi had addressed Iruka by his name for the first time, that was all.

“I--”

A flare of electricity jolted his wrist, raising all the tiny little hairs on his arm on end. Iruka flicked back the edge of his sleeve, revealing the luminescent blue glow of his metal chakra bracelet.

“Oh, it’s time for my afternoon appointment,” he said blankly and automatically got up, gathering the remnants of his lunch with one arm and sweeping it close to his chest. “Hatake, I mean Kakashi-san, it was a pleasure eating with you.”

The pile of entrails had entirely disappeared, leaving only a dirty white plate streaked with sauce and one crusty senbon. Iruka’s eyebrows slowly merged with his hairline. 

“How did you…?”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Kakashi said and flapped his hand at Iruka, Icha Icha already flopped open and covering his face. “Don’t you have a meeting to go to?”

“Well, yes, but.” Iruka’s flush deepened even more and he clambered out of his seat, feeling much more like the awkward chuunin from before. “I’ll see you around I guess? Um, please take good care of Naruto for me.” 

“Hmm.” Kakashi flicked a page ostentatiously.

Iruka drew in a deep breath and clutched his garbage even closer to himself. “I still have a question left, you know.”

“Do you?” Kakashi made a disinterested sort of noise. “That’s nice.”

“I’m holding it in reserve for-- for next time.”

Icha Icha snapped shut with a crack, revealing a curious grey eye. “Who says there’s going to be a next time, sensei?”

“I do,” Iruka said firmly, ignoring the insistently hot chain on his wrist and the tiny ball of anxiety slowly eroding a hole at the base of his stomach. “Because we made a bargain and I didn’t think Hatake Kakashi’s word was only worth so much.”

Black shifted into grey and Iruka slowly realized that Kakashi was smiling beneath his dark face mask, colors shifting with the movements of his mouth as the light lit up the sharp planes of his visage. 

“Alright, sensei.” Kakashi ran his gloved hand through his hair and gave what Iruka was starting to realize was one of Kakashi’s real smiles, hidden behind heavy duty stretch cloth. “Next time, we’ll go somewhere you don’t start getting faint at the sight of the food.”

“I didn’t get faint, only it just looks and smells terrible,” Iruka said hurriedly, shaking his wrist to keep the heat from burning too deeply into his skin. “I really have to go but if you drop by sometime or call even, and just let me know--”

Kakashi tilted his head. “You’re keeping the medics waiting, Iruka-sensei.”

“Alright, alright! But we made a deal!” Iruka said as he started walking backwards towards the exit, expertly winding around bustling crowds with the ease of long practice from watching tiny little machine of death and destruction. 

The last thing Iruka saw before the walls faded into sterile hospital white was Kakashi’s outstretched hand, waving lazily.


End file.
